Twice Shy, Sarah Hogle [100 books to read in a lifetime .txt] 📗

tiniest bit self-conscious about it and he—oh, he’s a dream, just marvelous, mesmerizing, painfully luminous in the glow of a sky he made all for me. “That’s because we’re up in the clouds now, going higher and higher,” he says.

“I see that,” I reply, hardly able to get the words out because I’m beaming so hugely.

“You see that bird that just went by?” he teases. “Caw, caw!”

I fall sideways just a bit, giggling. He catches me, holding me closer. Our graceless stumbling makes me throw my head back and laugh harder.

“Whooooosh,” he says at my ear, a smile in his voice, “there goes an airplane.”

I shake my head, but my heart leaps out of my body with a parachute. I feel wildly out of control, like I’m standing in the surf and the water’s pulling at me, trying to knock me off my feet. I’ve gotten close to this feeling before, manufactured in the superficial relationships of my fantasies, but that feeling falls flat on its face in comparison to this.

I am bubbles and butterflies. I am fizz floating into the night sky. I don’t know what’s happening or what will happen because for once, I am not orchestrating any of this. The lines are all unscripted, every second a thrilling surprise. I’m spinning out, carried away in a current. I want to fight it and I want to surrender.

My knees go wobbly as the identity of this feeling rips its mask off and declares itself to me, but Wesley thinks my heels are the culprit.

“All that effort, and you’re still all the way down there,” he tells me with a crooked grin. I blow a bubble with my gum, letting it pop in his face.

We’ve reached the end of the hall. Wesley reaches behind him, fumbling for a doorknob without turning. I think he wants to continue monitoring my reaction.

I arch a brow. “The conservatory?”

His expression is sly. “Is it?”

My forehead scrunches, but then the door is open, and the huge bags of soil I’ve seen him drag in here are nowhere to be found. “A bell chimes,” he says lowly, “when we open the door.”

“I didn’t hear a . . .”

My brain blinks out. I’m stationary as I wait for backup generators to kick on, letting pieces fall together slowly.

The sunroom, which I handed over to Wesley in exchange for the cabin in our negotiations, is not the conservatory he’s been talking about. There are plants, big floppy ferns in pots, but my attention flits past them to the red vinyl booth sidled up against the glass wall. The opposite wall is painted pale purple, lower half adorned with aqua tiles that spread over the floor. It smells like plaster and new construction, drilled wood and fresh paint. There are succulents in hanging baskets and a travel poster on the wall that says, in vintage style, welcome to falling stars. On closer inspection, it isn’t a poster at all. He’s painted the design directly onto the wall, then hung a frame around it.

“Over here is the display case,” he tells me, motioning at a bank of empty space, “filled with donuts. Up here is the old-fashioned register.” He raps the register-less countertop, which I realize was taken from the bar in the lounge upstairs. A coffeepot that’s probably as old as I am, carafe stained amber, awaits.

Part of me has gone away from Falling Stars, from Top of the World. I’m in Lexington, Kentucky, fourteen years old. In the car with Mom, world black, snow pushing against the windshield. We’re bundled in coats, hats, mittens, still-warm leftover pie from the diner between us in a Styrofoam container. We’re listening to syndicated radio host Delilah on the radio, and while we didn’t scratch millions from the lottery ticket, for the present moment we’re a peaceful family unit. The happy spark of memory infuses me with warmth.

My throat closes up. “It’s perfect.”

The rotary phone is blue rather than beige, nonfunctional, cord cut off. It automatically becomes canon. There’s only one red vinyl booth; the rest of the seating is thrifty substitutes, red-painted card tables with mismatched patio chairs. The bar stools don’t spin, and they’re yellow, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. He’s lit a candle called Blueberry Pie, the scent too weak to overpower the rest of the room. I picture Wesley picking out candles at Casey’s General, hunting for ones that smell like baked goods.

The cloud lights are in here, too—on the floor around us, hanging from the ceiling, reflecting off the glass wall to imitate a café in the night sky. Rain begins to fall outside, pelting the panes.

It’s a miracle I can stand upright when I am, in fact, melting.

“Do you hear the jukebox?” He’s behind me, hands at my waist, lips at my ear. He points at an old red Zenith radio sitting atop a pile of extra tiles.

“It’s playing my favorite song,” I reply, voice quivering in spite of my best efforts. I glance sideways at the glass wall to see his reflection. We stand in a room that is half shadow, half heaven, with softly glowing clouds, their number doubled in the glass wall. He is the most radiant thing in here, smile dazzling.

“You haven’t seen the best part yet.” Wesley moves my hands up from my mouth to my eyes. “Don’t look.”

I shut my eyes tight. “I can’t believe you did this. How long have you been working on it? How did you— I can’t even— You are . . .” I can’t drum up any coherent speech, babbling. “You are . . .”

“Yes,” he replies from several feet away, a touch smug. “I am, aren’t I?”

My cheeks hurt from smiling. “You truly are.”

Click.

“What was that?” I ask. “Please let it not be my morning alarm. Am I asleep? I hope this doesn’t all disappear when I open my eyes.”

“Don’t worry, it’s here to stay.” Wesley’s voice is closer than I anticipated. “And . . . open.”

I do.

Ohhh!

It’s my sign! Maybell’s Coffee Shop. The words are painted on an oval piece of wood.